Not exactly accurate. The Bin Laden thing started with Bush, Obama just happened to be sitting in the big chair when we caught up with him. The stock market was artificially inflated due to quantitative easy. When that ends the market will correct and it will likely be a sizable correction. The health care situation has improved but at what cost? The unemployment claim would be laughable if it wasn't so pathetic. He is basing his claim on the U-3 rate which is the people in the work ******* looking for work. It doesn't include the people that just gave up and doesn't include the huge influx of people claiming disability. There are more people in their 20's,30'sand even 40's that are living at home with parents or other family members. The real unemployment rate is still at least 2 point higher than the U-3 rate shows. On the plus side recent gains in jobs haven't been reflected is a significantly lower unemployment rate. This would indicate that people that previously weren't looking for work now are seeking employment. The lower gas prices? He about as much to do with that as I did. What initially drove down the price of crude was the oil glut in the Middle East
Politics, Politics, Politics
- Thread starter falcondfw69
- Start date
nongolfer.... you got that about right... they have so much on him...and still in office!
weeeelll not exactly accurate... Bush had him and didn't pursue it!...Obama had the balls to make the call and get him!...just a little difference there!
now that's a right wing response if there ever was one
now you are listening to trumps speeches!...the facts are what they are.... matter of fact it was Reagan that created these unemployment standards...only count the ones that are actually drawing.... but the facts are!
I want to review some numbers with you, because unless you’re a hyper-informed political junkie, I doubt you know them. How many net jobs has the economy created during Barack Obama’s presidency, and how many did it create during George W. Bush’s tenure? Notice first that I wrote “has the economy created” rather than “did Obama create/did Bush create.” I think it’s a better description of reality.
I also should note that I just measured the numbers under each president—I gave Bush the numbers from January 2001 to December 2008, and Obama the numbers from January 2009 to the present, with the following asterisk. January 2009 was when Obama became president, but he didn’t start until the 20th, of course. That was a particularly awful month, with 798,000 jobs lost. So I think it’s reasonable to give Bush, whose policies helped cause the meltdown anyway, two-thirds of that 798,000. (January 2001, by the way, was a tiny number, 30,000 jobs lost, but just to be consistent, I assigned only 10,000 of those to Bush.)
Here are Bush’s numbers: It’s 8.657 million jobs gained, and 7.121 million jobs lost, for a net job-creation number of 1.536 million. Pathetic. It’s interesting to look back over the numbers from 2001. The economy stank. The month of 9/11, we lost 242,000 jobs. Want to ascribe that just to the attacks? In August, we’d lost 158,000. The decent Bush years were 2004, 2005, 2006, and part of 2007, but even then the numbers were hoppy and inconsistent: 307,000 jobs added in May 2004 and just 74,000 in June, for instance.
And what about Obama’s numbers? I’d betting that even if you’re an Obama partisan, you think they’re not all that different from Bush’s. After all, 2009 was miserable: minus 798,000, minus 701,000, minus 826,000, and so on. The numbers went into the black in early 2010, but dipped back into the red in the summer. But remember, since October 2010, every report has been positive—the now 45 straight months of job growth that the president and his team, to little avail, crow about.
But they’ve added up, because under Obama, the economy has added 9.425 million jobs and lost 4.887, for a net gain of 4.538 million jobs. That’s a 3 million advantage over Bush. Now, 6.5 million jobs doesn’t put Obama up there in Clinton (22 million) and Reagan (around 16 million) territory. But remember—he has 30 months to go yet. Let’s say we average a gain of 250,000 a month the rest of the way. That’s another 7.5 million. And that would edge him up toward Reagan territory. And that seems conservative, if anything. If the recovery gets genuinely humming, we could start seeing months between 300,000 and 400,000 next year. It seems unlikely to happen, but God would it be hilarious if Obama, with everything the Republicans in Congress have done to keep the economy in a state of contraction, ended up surpassing Reagan.
[UPDATE: I rechecked my math this morning, and it's a good thing I did. I had originally given Obama nearly 2 million more jobs created than the actual numbers reflect. Obviously, I want to be accurate here. I added and re-added these three times.]
But all that’s speculative. After all, there could be a recession coming, too, though most experts don’t seem to fear that much. So let’s just talk about the up to now, the 6.5 million net jobs. As I said before, I bet you didn’t know that. Why?
Two main reasons. One, the administration doesn’t go a great job of trumpeting it, and I think for good reason. Officials may feel constrained from doing too much boasting because a lot of people’s perception and experience is still worse than that. A lot of these aren’t great jobs, and the economy is still only doing real well for the top 5 or 10 percent.
The second reason is that figures on the broad left simply aren’t superficial cheerleaders. The two men who are probably the most influential economic voices on the left, Paul Krugman and Robert Reich, have both been pretty harsh critics of the administration’s economic policies, as have other liberal economists. They, and less well-known but still prominent people such as Dean Baker, look at the numbers and report the truth as they see it. Democratic politicians are cheerleaders in varying degree—there’s Debbie Wasserman Schultz on the rah-rah end, but most Democrats don’t brag too much for the same reason the White House doesn’t.
And the media voices on the left—the folks on MSNBC, say—try to accentuate the positive in political terms, but they don’t ignore the bad news by any stretch of the imagination. MSNBC talks a lot about obstreperous Republicans, a theme to which I certainly contribute on air, but the network also offers a consistent diet of news features on and interviews with people stuck in the dead-end economy and having a hard time of it, segments that usually demand the government do more.
Now, imagine that a Republican president produced 45 straight months of job growth coming off the worst financial crisis since the Depression. Lord, we’d never hear the end of it from Fox and Limbaugh and even from CNBC. They wouldn’t care about the reality that a lot of the jobs are low wage. They’d just trumpet the bottom-line numbers as evidence of their president’s Churchillian greatness.
That’s how they are, and nothing’s going to change them. The important question now, as I said up top, is whether we’re really turning the psychic corner. Corporations have been hoarding record profits, banks still aren’t lending they way they should be, businesses have been skittish about large-scale hiring. It’s a big game of economic chicken, and it certainly has a political element. Most of these corporate titans and bankers and business leaders are Republicans. I don’t think most of them would intentionally hold the economy back because they don’t like the president, but I do think they take their cues from elected Republicans more than from Obama. When the Republicans stand up and say repeatedly that the president’s policies are failing, failing, failing, these private-sector titans hear them, and it influences what they do.
It may be that we’re finally working our way through all that. Happy days aren’t yet here again, but, once again, Democrats, the alleged socialists, are saving capitalism from the supposed lovers of capitalism who almost destroyed it.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...-know-obama-has-created-6-5-million-jobs.html
Obama Outperforms Reagan On Jobs, Growth And Investing
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) today issued America’s latest jobs report covering August. And it’s a disappointment. The economy created an additional 142,000 jobs last month. After six consecutive months over 200,000, most pundits expected the string to continue, including ADP which just yesterday said 204,000 jobs were created in August.
One month variation does not change a trend
Even though the plus-200,000 monthly string was broken (unless revised upward at a future date,) unemployment did continue to decline and is now reported at only 6.1%. Jobless claims were just over 300,000; lowest since 2007. Despite the lower than expected August jobs number, America will create about 2.5 million new jobs in 2014.
And that is great news.
Back in May, 2013 (15 months ago) the Dow was out of its recession doldrums and hitting new highs. I asked readers if Obama could, economically, be the best modern President? Through discussion of that question, the number one issue raised by readers was whether the stock market was a good economic barometer for judging “best.” Many complained that the measure they were watching was jobs – and that too many people were still looking for work.
To put this week’s jobs report in economic perspective I reached out to Bob Deitrick, CEO of Polaris Financial Partners and author of Bulls, Bears and the Ballot Box (which I profiled in October, 2012 just before the election) for some explanation. Since then Polaris’ investor newsletters have consistently been the best predictor of economic performance. Better than all the major investment houses.
This is the best private sector jobs creation performance in American history
Back in May, 2013 (15 months ago) the Dow was out of its recession doldrums and hitting new highs. I asked readers if Obama could, economically, be the best modern President? Through discussion of that question, the number one issue raised by readers was whether the stock market was a good economic barometer for judging “best.” Many complained that the measure they were watching was jobs – and that too many people were still looking for work.
To put this week’s jobs report in economic perspective I reached out to Bob Deitrick, CEO of Polaris Financial Partners and author of Bulls, Bears and the Ballot Box (which I profiled in October, 2012 just before the election) for some explanation. Since then Polaris’ investor newsletters have consistently been the best predictor of economic performance. Better than all the major investment houses.
”President Reagan has long been considered the best modern economic President. So we compared his performance dealing with the oil-induced recession of the 1980s with that of President Obama and his performance during this ‘Great Recession.’
“As this unemployment chart shows, President Obama’s job creation kept unemployment from peaking at as high a level as President Reagan, and promoted people into the workforce faster than President Reagan.
“President Obama has achieved a 6.1% unemployment rate in his sixth year, fully one year faster than President Reagan did. At this point in his presidency, President Reagan was still struggling with 7.1% unemployment, and he did not reach into the mid-low 6% range for another full year. So, despite today’s number, the Obama administration has still done considerably better at job creating and reducing unemployment than did the Reagan administration.
“We forecast unemployment will fall to around 5.4% by summer, 2015. A rate President Reagan was unable to achieve during his two terms.”
What about the Labor Participation Rate?
Much has been made about the poor results of the labor participation rate, which has shown more stubborn recalcitrance as this rate remains higher even as jobs have grown.
oo1 pic
“The labor participation rate adds in jobless part time workers and those in marginal work situations with those seeking full time work. This is not a “hidden” unemployment. It is a measure tracked since 1900 and called ‘U6.’ today by the BLS.
“As this chart shows, the difference between reported unemployment and all unemployment – including those on the fringe of the workforce – has remained pretty constant since 1994.
002 pic
Labor participation is affected much less by short-term job creation, and much more by long-term demographic trends. As this chart from the BLS shows, as the Baby Boomers entered the workforce and societal acceptance of women working changed, labor participation grew.
“Now that ‘Boomers’ are retiring we are seeing the percentage of those seeking employment decline. This has nothing to do with job availability, and everything to do with a highly predictable aging demographic.
“What’s now clear is that the Obama administration policies have outperformed the Reagan administration policies for job creation and unemployment reduction. Even though Reagan had the benefit of a growing Boomer class to ignite economic growth, while Obama has been ****** to deal with a retiring workforce developing special needs. During the eight years preceding Obama there was a net reduction in jobs in America. We now are rapidly moving toward higher, sustainable jobs growth.”
Economic growth, including manufacturing, is driving jobs
When President Obama took office America was gripped in an offshoring boom, started years earlier, pushing jobs to the developing world. Manufacturing was declining in America, and plants were closing across the nation.
This week the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) released its manufacturing report, and it surprised nearly everyone. The latest Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) scored 59, two points higher than July and about that much higher than prognosticators expected. This represents 63 straight months of economic expansion, and 25 consecutive months of manufacturing expansion.
New orders were up 3.3 points to 66.7, with 15 consecutive months of improvement and reaching the highest level since April, 2004 – five years prior to Obama becoming President. Not surprisingly, this economic growth provided for 14 consecutive months of improvement in the employment index. Meaning that the “grass roots” economy made its turn for the better just as the DJIA was reaching those highs back in 2013 – demonstrating that index is still the leading indicator for jobs that it has famously always been.
As the last 15 months have proven, jobs and economy are improving, and investors are benefiting
The stock market has converted the long-term growth in jobs and GDP into additional gains for investors. Recently the S&P has crested 2,000 – reaching new all time highs. Gains made by investors earlier in the Obama administration have further grown, helping businesses raise capital and improving the nest eggs of almost all Americans. And laying the foundation for recent, and prolonged job growth.
003 pic
While most Americans think they are not involved with the stock market, truthfully they are. Via their 401K, pension plan and employer savings accounts 2/3 of Americans have a clear vested interest in stock performance.
“As this chart shows, over the first 67 months of their presidencies there is a clear “winner” from an investor’s viewpoint. A dollar invested when Reagan assumed the presidency would have yielded a staggering 190% return. Such returns were unheard of prior to his leadership.
“However, it is undeniable that President Obama has surpassed the previous president. Investors have gained a remarkable 220% over the last 5.5 years! This level of investor growth is unprecedented by any administration, and has proven quite beneficial for everyone.
“In 2009, with pension funds underfunded and most private retirement accounts savaged by the financial meltdown and Wall Street losses, Boomers and Seniors were resigned to never retiring. The nest egg appeared gone, leaving the ‘chickens’ to keep working. But now that the coffers have been reloaded increasingly people age 55 – 70 are happily discovering they can quit their old jobs and spend time with family, relax, enjoy hobbies or start new at-home businesses from their laptops or tablets. It is due to a skyrocketing stock market that people can now pursue these dreams and reduce the labor participation rates for ‘better pastures.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhar...an-on-jobs-growth-and-investing/#ae6c82d20bca
FUN FACT: More net jobs have been created under Obama than both Bushes combined
http://www.eclectablog.com/2014/10/...ed-under-obama-than-both-bushes-combined.html
Obama: Since 2009, U.S. has created more jobs than 'every other advanced economy combined'
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...2009-us-has-created-more-jobs-every-other-ad/
64 Straight Months Of Private Sector Job Growth
https://www.dpcc.senate.gov/?p=blog&id=172
Torp
I really doubt you will take the time to read it... you are set in your opinion already!
I really doubt you will take the time to read it... you are set in your opinion already!
Why Republicans Hate Obamacare So Much
When President Barack Obama was first sworn into office in January 2009, he immediately began the process for passing his key policy issue - reforming the country’s expensive and haphazard health insurance industry. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which would eventually be known as the Affordable Care Act, the ACA, or simply “Obamacare,” was then introduced in the fall of 2009. By November, it passed with a mere five-vote majority in the House, and the following month, it passed the Senate 60 to 39.
In both chambers, not one single Republican voted in favor of the bill.
It didn’t have to be that way. Health-care reform was an issue both parties were in favor of and previous efforts had enjoyed bipartisan support. The most hopeful-looking option was the “Healthy Americans Act,” a reform bill introduced by Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, and Sen. Robert Bennett, a Republican from Utah. The 2007 bill had multiple co-sponsors on both sides of the aisle but never managed to make it out of committee.
Still, when it came to the Affordable Care Act, Republican politicians were lockstep in their refusal to so much as consider any sort of common ground - even though many aspects of the plan were quite similar to a 2006 Massachusetts law developed and signed by Republican Gov. Mitt Romney. Their opposition was immediate, total, and relentless, to the point where many find themselves wondering just what do they hate so much about Obamacare?
Based solely on official conservative principles, there are actually a number of issues that the GOP legitimately would have with the ACA. Just like Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare, they view Obamacare as an entitlement program they would be more than happy to discontinue, believing that the government should never be involved in assuring minimum standards of living are met. “ome conservatives oppose it for the same reason that liberals favor it. Through the Medicaid expansion and the exchanges, it subsidizes insurance coverage for people of modest means by raising taxes on people of less-modest means,” explains Reilhan Salam at Slate, adding, “Conservatives tend not to be enthusiastic about redistribution, and they’re particularly skeptical about redistribution that isn’t transparent.”
The industry regulations that are a part of the Affordable Care Act are also another stumbling block for fiscal conservatives who believe that businesses should always be allowed to govern themselves and are justified in gaining as much profit as they can for shareholders. As part of health-care reform, insurance agencies were ****** to spend 85 percent of all revenues on medical care rather than administration costs or bonuses or perks. They could also no longer cap how much they spend per patient in coverage due to medical conditions or other need for chronic care, either on an annual or lifetime basis. These restrictions on profitability are opposed by Republicans who think free market principles will keep businesses in check.
And of course there were issues with reproductive health care such as abortion and birth control. Anti-abortion groups claimed the Affordable Care Act to be “the largest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade” due to the inclusion of some insurance plans in the exchange that allowed coverage for elective abortions. They considered plans purchased on state and federal exchanges to be a means of forsing other taxpayers to “subsidize” elective abortion coverage, despite the fact that the government set up additional steps to ensure that federal funding to private insurance plans that cover abortions remain separate, and the president’s additional executive order reaffirming the Hyde Amendment’s federal ban on abortion funding. They also demanded exceptions for all companies - for-profit and nonprofit - who had religious objections to birth control. The birth control mandate declared contraception an essential service for women’s health and required all companies to offer plans that included hormonal birth control, emergency contraception, long-acting birth control methods, and female sterilization procedures. Religious institutions were allowed a conscientious objection to the coverage, but social conservatives wanted the loophole extended to any business or organization whose owners disapproved of any birth control use for moral reasons – regardless of how many of their own employees or other insurees may have different opinions on the issue
Yet while the GOP has strenuously opposed all of these individual aspects of the ACA, it was the individual mandate that appeared to irk them the most - and had the least reason to do so. Republicans, using language that originated with the conservative Heritage Institute, were advocating for a requirement that all people be required some form of health insurance as long ago as the late 1980s and it was championed by GOP Congress members during much of the early 1990s. It was even a key component in the Massachusetts health care law approved by Gov. Romney in 2006. But the individual mandate instead went from being something that Republicans were willing to support in order to bring down the costs of insurance to a policy they claim strips personal liberty and is even tantamount to slavery.
So what flipped the switch? Election Day, 2008. When Obama won his first presidential election, that also put both the House and Senate into Democratic control. The House Democrats outnumbered Republicans 257 to 178, and Democrats and their two independent allies outnumbered the Senate Republicans 59 to 41. According to the Brookings Institute’s Thomas Mann, GOP strategy experts decided that the best way to win back majorities would be to keep their entire conservative block united in rejecting any legislation that could potentially be viewed as a Democratic success if it passed. Congressional Republicans were urged to filibuster any bill that came before the Senate and harshly criticize any law that they couldn’t stop in an attempt to make what did pass as unpopular as possible. That decision doomed any chance for bipartisan health-care reform.
The GOP’s refusal to vote in favor of Obamacare’s passage and their aggressive opposition to every element of the bill - even those they had agreed with in the past - served to help them sweep into power in both Congress and a number of state legislatures when the 2010 midterms came around. And by taking over a number of state legislatures and governors’ mansions, Republicans could then block portions of the ACA from going into effect, further hampering the reforms. Red-state legislatures often refused to expand Medicaid so more people could receive subsidized insurance plans, leaving their residents with far more expensive out-of-pocket costs than blue-state counterparts. They also often opted out of opening their own state exchanges, forsing the uninsured to enroll through the federal exchange instead, which limited their coverage options and put a greater burden on the federal site. By first refusing to support Obamacare and then purposefully trying to make it fail, Republicans believed any consumer dissatisfaction would rest completely on the shoulders of the Democrats, since they were the only ones to vote in favor of the law.
So do Republicans really despise the Affordable Care Act? Despite the fact that they have voted in some way, shape, or form to repeal some or all of the ACA more than 60 times in the six years since it was signed into law, the answer may surprisingly be no. Or at least, not as much of it as they claim. But they do hate the “Obamacare” that was passed solely with Democratic votes and signed by a Democratic president, and they will do anything to tear that down completely. And when they later replace it with a new plan that has a surprising number of policies similar to the law they just undid, well, then we will know the thing they hated most about Obamacare was always Obama.
When President Barack Obama was first sworn into office in January 2009, he immediately began the process for passing his key policy issue - reforming the country’s expensive and haphazard health insurance industry. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which would eventually be known as the Affordable Care Act, the ACA, or simply “Obamacare,” was then introduced in the fall of 2009. By November, it passed with a mere five-vote majority in the House, and the following month, it passed the Senate 60 to 39.
In both chambers, not one single Republican voted in favor of the bill.
It didn’t have to be that way. Health-care reform was an issue both parties were in favor of and previous efforts had enjoyed bipartisan support. The most hopeful-looking option was the “Healthy Americans Act,” a reform bill introduced by Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, and Sen. Robert Bennett, a Republican from Utah. The 2007 bill had multiple co-sponsors on both sides of the aisle but never managed to make it out of committee.
Still, when it came to the Affordable Care Act, Republican politicians were lockstep in their refusal to so much as consider any sort of common ground - even though many aspects of the plan were quite similar to a 2006 Massachusetts law developed and signed by Republican Gov. Mitt Romney. Their opposition was immediate, total, and relentless, to the point where many find themselves wondering just what do they hate so much about Obamacare?
Based solely on official conservative principles, there are actually a number of issues that the GOP legitimately would have with the ACA. Just like Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare, they view Obamacare as an entitlement program they would be more than happy to discontinue, believing that the government should never be involved in assuring minimum standards of living are met. “ome conservatives oppose it for the same reason that liberals favor it. Through the Medicaid expansion and the exchanges, it subsidizes insurance coverage for people of modest means by raising taxes on people of less-modest means,” explains Reilhan Salam at Slate, adding, “Conservatives tend not to be enthusiastic about redistribution, and they’re particularly skeptical about redistribution that isn’t transparent.”
The industry regulations that are a part of the Affordable Care Act are also another stumbling block for fiscal conservatives who believe that businesses should always be allowed to govern themselves and are justified in gaining as much profit as they can for shareholders. As part of health-care reform, insurance agencies were ****** to spend 85 percent of all revenues on medical care rather than administration costs or bonuses or perks. They could also no longer cap how much they spend per patient in coverage due to medical conditions or other need for chronic care, either on an annual or lifetime basis. These restrictions on profitability are opposed by Republicans who think free market principles will keep businesses in check.
And of course there were issues with reproductive health care such as abortion and birth control. Anti-abortion groups claimed the Affordable Care Act to be “the largest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade” due to the inclusion of some insurance plans in the exchange that allowed coverage for elective abortions. They considered plans purchased on state and federal exchanges to be a means of forsing other taxpayers to “subsidize” elective abortion coverage, despite the fact that the government set up additional steps to ensure that federal funding to private insurance plans that cover abortions remain separate, and the president’s additional executive order reaffirming the Hyde Amendment’s federal ban on abortion funding. They also demanded exceptions for all companies - for-profit and nonprofit - who had religious objections to birth control. The birth control mandate declared contraception an essential service for women’s health and required all companies to offer plans that included hormonal birth control, emergency contraception, long-acting birth control methods, and female sterilization procedures. Religious institutions were allowed a conscientious objection to the coverage, but social conservatives wanted the loophole extended to any business or organization whose owners disapproved of any birth control use for moral reasons – regardless of how many of their own employees or other insurees may have different opinions on the issue
Yet while the GOP has strenuously opposed all of these individual aspects of the ACA, it was the individual mandate that appeared to irk them the most - and had the least reason to do so. Republicans, using language that originated with the conservative Heritage Institute, were advocating for a requirement that all people be required some form of health insurance as long ago as the late 1980s and it was championed by GOP Congress members during much of the early 1990s. It was even a key component in the Massachusetts health care law approved by Gov. Romney in 2006. But the individual mandate instead went from being something that Republicans were willing to support in order to bring down the costs of insurance to a policy they claim strips personal liberty and is even tantamount to slavery.
So what flipped the switch? Election Day, 2008. When Obama won his first presidential election, that also put both the House and Senate into Democratic control. The House Democrats outnumbered Republicans 257 to 178, and Democrats and their two independent allies outnumbered the Senate Republicans 59 to 41. According to the Brookings Institute’s Thomas Mann, GOP strategy experts decided that the best way to win back majorities would be to keep their entire conservative block united in rejecting any legislation that could potentially be viewed as a Democratic success if it passed. Congressional Republicans were urged to filibuster any bill that came before the Senate and harshly criticize any law that they couldn’t stop in an attempt to make what did pass as unpopular as possible. That decision doomed any chance for bipartisan health-care reform.
The GOP’s refusal to vote in favor of Obamacare’s passage and their aggressive opposition to every element of the bill - even those they had agreed with in the past - served to help them sweep into power in both Congress and a number of state legislatures when the 2010 midterms came around. And by taking over a number of state legislatures and governors’ mansions, Republicans could then block portions of the ACA from going into effect, further hampering the reforms. Red-state legislatures often refused to expand Medicaid so more people could receive subsidized insurance plans, leaving their residents with far more expensive out-of-pocket costs than blue-state counterparts. They also often opted out of opening their own state exchanges, forsing the uninsured to enroll through the federal exchange instead, which limited their coverage options and put a greater burden on the federal site. By first refusing to support Obamacare and then purposefully trying to make it fail, Republicans believed any consumer dissatisfaction would rest completely on the shoulders of the Democrats, since they were the only ones to vote in favor of the law.
So do Republicans really despise the Affordable Care Act? Despite the fact that they have voted in some way, shape, or form to repeal some or all of the ACA more than 60 times in the six years since it was signed into law, the answer may surprisingly be no. Or at least, not as much of it as they claim. But they do hate the “Obamacare” that was passed solely with Democratic votes and signed by a Democratic president, and they will do anything to tear that down completely. And when they later replace it with a new plan that has a surprising number of policies similar to the law they just undid, well, then we will know the thing they hated most about Obamacare was always Obama.
BTW Torp... you see there is a new documentary coming out on Reagan?
I think it's whole purpose is a jab at trump... how he could throw a humorous jab at Russia or whomever and smile and joke and get his point across!
something our current liar in chief seems unable to do
but then I think Russia's whole plan is destroy us from within... and he has paid trump to do it!
I think it's whole purpose is a jab at trump... how he could throw a humorous jab at Russia or whomever and smile and joke and get his point across!
something our current liar in chief seems unable to do
but then I think Russia's whole plan is destroy us from within... and he has paid trump to do it!
Emergency care does get abused no doubt about that. Both hospitals in the city I live in triage most people coming to emergency. The emergency and urgent care are adjacent. The hospital determines which you go to and there is a very significant difference in cost.
What hospitals write off is an interesting subject in itself. The company I used to work for is paying my health insurance as part of my retirement. I get copies of all the billing. Every single bill has charges for services or medication I have no recollection of. And it has been on every single bill.
About a year ago an acquaintance went through bankruptcy because of medical bills. Long story short he got caught in a downsizing and choose to drop healthcare temporarily. So he has a serious medical emergency and ends up with a huge bill he can't pay and the hospital is pushing hard to collect. So he files bankruptcy. One afternoon we are discussing the situation and he mentioned what one of the tests had cost. It didn't sound right to me so he got out a copy of his bill. I dug out copies of my medical bills and was very shocked. Same hospital at about the same time everything that we both had received he was billed 2 to 3 times as much. So it appears that when he filed bankruptcy the hospital writes off an inflated amount. It is a win win for the hospital, if he can pay they get premium profits far better than they would get from an insurance company, if he can't pay they write off an inflated amount and then tout how much they are ****** to write off.
A while back I took a friend to urgent care. While she was getting dressed a hospital employee came into the room explained what her insurance would cover and what it wouldn't. The employee then said the uninsured balance needed to be paid that day or arrangements made for payment. My friend came out nearly in tears. The employee followed her out to where I was. I gave the employee the name of my attorney and suggested that she contact the attorney to make payment arrangements. A sidebar to this. When my wife passed away I got copies of bills every month for nearly two years. Never a lot, initially 100 to 200 dollars and later 30 or 40 dollars. After 2 years I told them that this smelled of fraud and I was going to contact the insurance company, the police, any regulatory agencies to investigate fraud. I never saw another bill. Incidentally my wife died at home
The hospital responsible? Well I live in the Midwest and the hospital and its network are known internationally. It makes me wonder what lesser known hospitals do.
Now let's take a look at what happened at the hospital where your wife works. They had to write off $150,000 in a single week. But what is that $150,000? Is it the costs of the goods and services that they didn't get paid for or is it the billed amount that they didn't receive payment for. I assume the higher billing rate for uninsured is likely a common practice. I believe it is illegal under PPACA but the people affected aren't likely to make waves. So I am assuming (I am just assuming because I don't know) that very likely that $150,000 that was written off would have only been 50,000 to 75,000 dollars if it had been billed to an insurance company
The only thing that will ever get costs under control is a single payer system.
Subhub the reason I quit coming to this thread is you are such an idiot. Anything you disagree with is just someone else's opinion or right wing propaganda. You are unable or unwilling to look behind the bullshit the politicians feed us to see the truth. To be fair there are probably as many right wing idiots as there are left wing ones.
I think it's the space aliens
I am not sure I follow your logic here. Medicaid is a program ran by the states and funded by the states and federal government. Medicaid is for very low income people. I think in Wisconsin the income level is below $10,000. If Medicaid were to end these people don't have money to buy insurance. So how would the insurance companies be stuck?
ok I will agree with that
besides the argument started when all you wanted to do was talk about how bad Clinton and Obama ruined the country... didn't like it when I corrected you and pointed out Reagans faults...that's where things went downhill!
but welcome back.... hopefully we don't go back into old arguments..... but I do enjoy arguing points I know ....politics I have been into for years....taxes,I'm starting to learn... the hard way it seems...and because of my age I am really starting to pay attention to health care
and that is not true... I agree and argue with about everybody... besides... just because I said it was a typical right wing comment does not mean I was...irked??? about it...all of you people on the right have "your version" of the stock market...so just seemed like a standard answer so that was my comment
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I think it's the space aliens
could be...if they are Russian..... but I think he is really going out of his way to...harm? the country....
and that documentary was on CNN.... I turned it on anyway and watched it.... didn't change my mind about the guy... still think he screwed the country..... BUT one thing about him... that is really lacking in this liar n chief.....he had the gift of gab (charisma?) .. this one just has the gift of lying and deceiving........ but he was a lot smarter in how to use it and did not offend other countries... most foreign leaders respected him.......unlike this one.... I really doubt we have any respect anywhere in the world right now
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Congress wanted to stop footing the bill for Medicaid... and still does
if ins comp offer a certain rate and then congress wins the lawsuit and ends medicaid
Damn torp..... started looking for that article on the lawsuit and start of ins comp leaving ACA...couldn't find it since it was several years old... but found and read a lot of different articles on all this.... not good..not happy.... for one I see my ins comp is leaving the state... that pisses me off since they offered us such a good deal on retirement.... guess that's out the friggn window
but out of several I read this one seems most.......?
Why Are So Many Insurance Companies Leaving the Exchanges?
Despite headlines, most insurers will still participate in 2017
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) created a health insurance exchange in every state. Most are run by the federal government, using Healthcare.gov, but 13 states run their own enrollment platforms in 2016.
Although the exchanges themselves are run by the state or federal government, the health insurance plans for sale in the exchanges are offered by private insurance companies. All of those companies are voluntarily participating in the exchanges, as there's no requirement that they do so.
And at least 18 health insurance carriers around the country have said that they will not continue to offer plans in the exchange in 2017.
This has generated a slew of headlines, and caused understandable distress for people who currently have coverage through the exchanges. In many cases, the carrier exits apply both on and off the exchange, which means that some people who purchase individual health insurance outside the exchanges will also have to shop around for new coverage at the end of 2016.
In Pinal County, Arizona—home to 400,000 people—there were no carriers slated to sell health insurance in the Arizona exchange for 2017 as of early September 2016. But the federal government and the Arizona Department of Insurance worked with carriers to remedy that situation, and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona ultimately agreed to continue to offer plans in the exchange in Pinal County. As a result, every area of the country is expected to have health insurance options in the exchange when open enrollment starts on November 1.
Why Are Carriers Leaving the Exchanges?
In general, carriers are exiting the exchanges—or the individual market in general—because they're losing money on that segment of business. That doesn't mean they're not making a profit overall, since the individual market makes up a small percentage of the overall insurance market: About 6 percent of Americans had coverage in the individual market in 2014, while 49 percent had employer-sponsored insurance, 19 percent had Medicaid, and 13 percent had Medicare (private health insurers participate heavily in the Medicaid and Medicare markets, via Medicaid Managed Care Organizations, Medicare Advantage, and Medigap).
But despite the fact that a carrier might still be well in the black in terms of overall revenue and expenses, if a particular market segment—in this case, the individual market or the exchange market in particular—is losing money, it may not be sustainable for the carrier to continue to offer plans in that market.
Before the ACA took effect, health insurers in the individual markets in all but five states were able to use medical underwriting to determine which applicants would be offered coverage, and at what price. The result was that people with pre-existing health conditions were often unable to obtain coverage, but health insurers were able to easily manage their bottom lines.
Now that coverage is guaranteed issue regardless of medical history, it's a different story. There's an individual mandate (ie, the shared responsibility provision) that calls for a tax penalty to be assessed when people go uninsured, but there are numerous exemptions from the penalty, and even when it's assessed, the IRS has no enforcement tools beyond deducting it from a tax filer's refund.
And while the ACA limits enrollment to an annual open enrollment period or a special enrollment period triggered by a qualifying event, the exchanges have been somewhat lax in obtaining proof of qualifying events.
The result is that people enrolling outside of open enrollment are tending to have higher claims costs than people enrolling during open enrollment; the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association reported in early 2016 that medical service utilization was 55 percent higher among people who enroll outside of open enrollment.
The ACA provided some risk mitigation measures to help carriers transition to a guaranteed issue market and to make up for the fact that carriers had very little in the way of actuarial evidence on which to base their premiums in the early years of ACA implementation. But the risk corridor program ended up paying carriers less than 13 percent of what they were owed, which contributed to the demise of several CO-OPs at the end of 2015, and adversely impacted the finances of numerous other carriers across the country (here's more on how the risk corridor situation played out).
Hundreds of thousands of people had to shop for new coverage at the end of 2015, mostly because of CO-OP closures, but also because a handful of carriers exited the exchanges or the individual market. At the end of 2016, there will be a similar situation, but it's going to impact a lot more people since there are several national carriers involved. It's estimated that roughly two million people currently enrolled in exchange plans will need to pick new plans due to carrier exits. But there are 11 million people who have coverage in private plans through the exchange; for most, the carrier exits will not impact their coverage.
When Aetna announced in August that they would exit the exchanges in 11 of the 15 states where they currently offer exchange plans, they noted that their losses are expected to be about $300 million this year on their exchange business. Many questions have been raised about the fact that Aetna had also told the Department of Justice earlier this year that if the government blocked Aetna's impending merger with Humana, Aetna would pull out of the exchanges. Are they exiting because they're losing money, or because the DOJ did ultimately file a lawsuit to block the merger? In reality, it's probably a little from column A and a little from column B. But the end result is that several hundred thousand people will need new coverage in January, as their current plans will no longer be available.
UnitedHealthcare hinted in late 2015 that they might withdraw from the exchanges at the end of 2016, and they made it official in the spring of 2016. The carrier noted that they lost hundreds of millions of dollars on their exchange business in 2015 and 2016, and they've chosen to exit the exchanges (along with most of the off-exchange markets) in nearly all of the 34 states where they currently offer exchange plans. They will continue to offer plans in the exchanges in just three states: Virginia, New York, and Nevada (Nevada requires all of its Medicaid Managed Care Organizations to offer individual plans in the exchange as well, which is likely part of the reason UnitedHealthcare will remain in Nevada, as they have a Medicaid managed care contract with the state).
Humana is dropping most of its off-exchange individual market plans, but will continue to have on-exchange plans in several states. And several other carriers that offer localized coverage will be dropping out of the exchanges—or the entire individual market—in their respective states.
Will These Carriers Ever Return to the Exchanges?
Some of the exiting carriers might end up returning to the exchanges in the future. If they see the individual market becoming more stable, and if they feel that they can make money in that market, they may return.
But federal regulations ban a carrier from reentering a market for five years following a full market exit. So if a carrier drops all of their individual market plans (including on and off-exchange plans) in a given state, that would be considered a full market exit, even if the carrier continues to offer group health plans in the state.
This is one of the reasons Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Mexico opted to keep one bronze off-exchange plan available in New Mexico in 2016, despite dropping their other individual market plans; they are now planning to return to the exchange in 2017, and by keeping a single plan available in the individual market in 2016, they avoided a full market exit and were therefore not banned from reentering the market. And although Cigna dropped out of the Florida exchange for 2016, they continued to offer off-exchange coverage, and are planning to return to the Florida exchange for 2017.
Some of the carriers that are exiting the exchanges at the end of 2016 are exiting the entire individual market in select states, while others will continue to offer off-exchange plans and avoid a full market exit. In states where a carrier exits the individual market altogether, a future re-entry will be delayed for five years unless the federal government relaxes the reentry requirements in the future.
What Do I Need to Do if My Carrier Is Leaving the Exchange?
If you have a plan through the exchange and it won't be available in 2017 because your carrier is leaving the exchange, you'll need to pick a new plan during open enrollment, which begins November 1, 2016.
If you don't return to the exchange to pick a new plan, the exchange will attempt to pick one for you, but there are no guarantees that you'll have coverage as of January 1. For 2017, there are new guidelines that allow the exchange—whenever possible—to pick a new plan for an enrollee when the insurer drops out of the exchange and the enrollee doesn't log back into his or her exchange account to pick a replacement plan.
But your best bet is to log back into your exchange account and pick a new plan yourself. Doing so by December 15 will make your enrollment process as smooth as possible and ensure that you have coverage in effect as of January 1.
If your carrier is exiting the exchange, it's understandable if you're stressed and upset by their decision. It remains to be seen whether regulators and lawmakers will be able to incentivize carriers to join the exchanges in future years.
But there's still at least one carrier offering coverage in the exchange in every area of the U.S. for 2017. And although premiums are going up again, subsidies in the exchanges will offset premiums for people with income up to 400 percent of the poverty level ($97,200 a year for a family of four). For most exchange enrollees, the availability of subsidies and the fact that there will still be participating carriers in 2017 means that affordable health insurance will still be available.
but this IS an easy fix... if they were to work at it!
anyway just food for thought or.....??????
but out of several I read this one seems most.......?
Why Are So Many Insurance Companies Leaving the Exchanges?
Despite headlines, most insurers will still participate in 2017
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) created a health insurance exchange in every state. Most are run by the federal government, using Healthcare.gov, but 13 states run their own enrollment platforms in 2016.
Although the exchanges themselves are run by the state or federal government, the health insurance plans for sale in the exchanges are offered by private insurance companies. All of those companies are voluntarily participating in the exchanges, as there's no requirement that they do so.
And at least 18 health insurance carriers around the country have said that they will not continue to offer plans in the exchange in 2017.
This has generated a slew of headlines, and caused understandable distress for people who currently have coverage through the exchanges. In many cases, the carrier exits apply both on and off the exchange, which means that some people who purchase individual health insurance outside the exchanges will also have to shop around for new coverage at the end of 2016.
In Pinal County, Arizona—home to 400,000 people—there were no carriers slated to sell health insurance in the Arizona exchange for 2017 as of early September 2016. But the federal government and the Arizona Department of Insurance worked with carriers to remedy that situation, and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona ultimately agreed to continue to offer plans in the exchange in Pinal County. As a result, every area of the country is expected to have health insurance options in the exchange when open enrollment starts on November 1.
Why Are Carriers Leaving the Exchanges?
In general, carriers are exiting the exchanges—or the individual market in general—because they're losing money on that segment of business. That doesn't mean they're not making a profit overall, since the individual market makes up a small percentage of the overall insurance market: About 6 percent of Americans had coverage in the individual market in 2014, while 49 percent had employer-sponsored insurance, 19 percent had Medicaid, and 13 percent had Medicare (private health insurers participate heavily in the Medicaid and Medicare markets, via Medicaid Managed Care Organizations, Medicare Advantage, and Medigap).
But despite the fact that a carrier might still be well in the black in terms of overall revenue and expenses, if a particular market segment—in this case, the individual market or the exchange market in particular—is losing money, it may not be sustainable for the carrier to continue to offer plans in that market.
Before the ACA took effect, health insurers in the individual markets in all but five states were able to use medical underwriting to determine which applicants would be offered coverage, and at what price. The result was that people with pre-existing health conditions were often unable to obtain coverage, but health insurers were able to easily manage their bottom lines.
Now that coverage is guaranteed issue regardless of medical history, it's a different story. There's an individual mandate (ie, the shared responsibility provision) that calls for a tax penalty to be assessed when people go uninsured, but there are numerous exemptions from the penalty, and even when it's assessed, the IRS has no enforcement tools beyond deducting it from a tax filer's refund.
And while the ACA limits enrollment to an annual open enrollment period or a special enrollment period triggered by a qualifying event, the exchanges have been somewhat lax in obtaining proof of qualifying events.
The result is that people enrolling outside of open enrollment are tending to have higher claims costs than people enrolling during open enrollment; the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association reported in early 2016 that medical service utilization was 55 percent higher among people who enroll outside of open enrollment.
The ACA provided some risk mitigation measures to help carriers transition to a guaranteed issue market and to make up for the fact that carriers had very little in the way of actuarial evidence on which to base their premiums in the early years of ACA implementation. But the risk corridor program ended up paying carriers less than 13 percent of what they were owed, which contributed to the demise of several CO-OPs at the end of 2015, and adversely impacted the finances of numerous other carriers across the country (here's more on how the risk corridor situation played out).
Hundreds of thousands of people had to shop for new coverage at the end of 2015, mostly because of CO-OP closures, but also because a handful of carriers exited the exchanges or the individual market. At the end of 2016, there will be a similar situation, but it's going to impact a lot more people since there are several national carriers involved. It's estimated that roughly two million people currently enrolled in exchange plans will need to pick new plans due to carrier exits. But there are 11 million people who have coverage in private plans through the exchange; for most, the carrier exits will not impact their coverage.
When Aetna announced in August that they would exit the exchanges in 11 of the 15 states where they currently offer exchange plans, they noted that their losses are expected to be about $300 million this year on their exchange business. Many questions have been raised about the fact that Aetna had also told the Department of Justice earlier this year that if the government blocked Aetna's impending merger with Humana, Aetna would pull out of the exchanges. Are they exiting because they're losing money, or because the DOJ did ultimately file a lawsuit to block the merger? In reality, it's probably a little from column A and a little from column B. But the end result is that several hundred thousand people will need new coverage in January, as their current plans will no longer be available.
UnitedHealthcare hinted in late 2015 that they might withdraw from the exchanges at the end of 2016, and they made it official in the spring of 2016. The carrier noted that they lost hundreds of millions of dollars on their exchange business in 2015 and 2016, and they've chosen to exit the exchanges (along with most of the off-exchange markets) in nearly all of the 34 states where they currently offer exchange plans. They will continue to offer plans in the exchanges in just three states: Virginia, New York, and Nevada (Nevada requires all of its Medicaid Managed Care Organizations to offer individual plans in the exchange as well, which is likely part of the reason UnitedHealthcare will remain in Nevada, as they have a Medicaid managed care contract with the state).
Humana is dropping most of its off-exchange individual market plans, but will continue to have on-exchange plans in several states. And several other carriers that offer localized coverage will be dropping out of the exchanges—or the entire individual market—in their respective states.
Will These Carriers Ever Return to the Exchanges?
Some of the exiting carriers might end up returning to the exchanges in the future. If they see the individual market becoming more stable, and if they feel that they can make money in that market, they may return.
But federal regulations ban a carrier from reentering a market for five years following a full market exit. So if a carrier drops all of their individual market plans (including on and off-exchange plans) in a given state, that would be considered a full market exit, even if the carrier continues to offer group health plans in the state.
This is one of the reasons Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Mexico opted to keep one bronze off-exchange plan available in New Mexico in 2016, despite dropping their other individual market plans; they are now planning to return to the exchange in 2017, and by keeping a single plan available in the individual market in 2016, they avoided a full market exit and were therefore not banned from reentering the market. And although Cigna dropped out of the Florida exchange for 2016, they continued to offer off-exchange coverage, and are planning to return to the Florida exchange for 2017.
Some of the carriers that are exiting the exchanges at the end of 2016 are exiting the entire individual market in select states, while others will continue to offer off-exchange plans and avoid a full market exit. In states where a carrier exits the individual market altogether, a future re-entry will be delayed for five years unless the federal government relaxes the reentry requirements in the future.
What Do I Need to Do if My Carrier Is Leaving the Exchange?
If you have a plan through the exchange and it won't be available in 2017 because your carrier is leaving the exchange, you'll need to pick a new plan during open enrollment, which begins November 1, 2016.
If you don't return to the exchange to pick a new plan, the exchange will attempt to pick one for you, but there are no guarantees that you'll have coverage as of January 1. For 2017, there are new guidelines that allow the exchange—whenever possible—to pick a new plan for an enrollee when the insurer drops out of the exchange and the enrollee doesn't log back into his or her exchange account to pick a replacement plan.
But your best bet is to log back into your exchange account and pick a new plan yourself. Doing so by December 15 will make your enrollment process as smooth as possible and ensure that you have coverage in effect as of January 1.
If your carrier is exiting the exchange, it's understandable if you're stressed and upset by their decision. It remains to be seen whether regulators and lawmakers will be able to incentivize carriers to join the exchanges in future years.
But there's still at least one carrier offering coverage in the exchange in every area of the U.S. for 2017. And although premiums are going up again, subsidies in the exchanges will offset premiums for people with income up to 400 percent of the poverty level ($97,200 a year for a family of four). For most exchange enrollees, the availability of subsidies and the fact that there will still be participating carriers in 2017 means that affordable health insurance will still be available.
but this IS an easy fix... if they were to work at it!
anyway just food for thought or.....??????
very interesting
The Obamacare Paradox: The Real Reason Health Insurance Companies Don’t Like the ACA
Health insurance can be confusing. Take the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”). Health insurance companies spent a lot of money lobbying to make sure they’d profit from the eventual system. They were so successful, in fact, that a frequent criticism of Obamacare is that it’s just a “giveaway to the health insurance industry.” Yet, one of the major emerging challenges to Obamacare is that health insurance companies are now reluctant to participate. In fact, they’ve even spent millions of dollars trying to defeat the ACA. So, why are they opposing this supposed gift to them?
You could try asking the insurance companies, but don’t expect a clear answer from them. Creating confusion appears to be part of their business model. Still, most of the big health insurance companies file financial statements each year, and these financial statements can give us clues that might explain their behavior.
Before we jump into their financial statements, let’s first take a moment to understand the insurance business. Insurance is a bet you make with a large company that something bad will happen to you. It’s a strange bet, because both you and the company hope you’ll lose. Just to make sure you’ll lose, insurance companies hire high-priced financial talent to guarantee their odds of winning; they know exactly how to rig the game.
So imagine my surprise when I started analyzing insurance company financial records and found that the big insurance companies have spent years getting out of the commercial health insurance business. This explains why they’re rejecting Obamacare: it turns out the last thing they really wanted was millions of new commercial customers to insure.
Let me clarify this: health insurance companies aren’t rejecting all new business. For example if you qualify for either Medicare or Medicaid, you probably get calls every day from insurance companies that are trying to sign you up. The Medicare act of 2003 made these policies very profitable for them. Since 2005 the eight largest for-profit health insurance companies have increased their Medicare and Medicaid (non-commercial) membership almost 200 percent.
But if you don’t qualify for Medicare or Medicaid, insurance companies are a lot less interested in you. Commercial membership for these companies are up only about 13 percent since 2005, and with those policies, they’ve found a way to make someone else write the checks. Most commercial policies that insurance companies now manage are Administrative Service Contracts (ASCs) which aren’t even actual insurance.
Here’s how ASCs work: employers hire health insurance companies to manage medical expenses for their employees. The insurer gives these employees access to their networks of doctors and hospitals, and it processes claims, issues denials and negotiates medical bills. But the employer, not the insurer, writes the checks to cover the bills. This hasn’t reduced the confusion or bureaucracy in healthcare, but it’s a radical shift in financial responsibility. Employers are buying ASCs because ASC fees seem cheaper than the cost of insurance premiums.
Why is this strange? The purpose of insurance is to manage risk, and there are two major reasons people want insurance companies to manage their risk: they’re huge and risk management is all that they do. A large company needs to be an expert in the business it runs. Only a large health insurance company can afford to be an expert in how to price medical costs and manage medical risk. Also, the more insured policy holders an insurance company has, the easier it is for them to handle any unexpected payouts.
But unlike other types of insurance, health insurance companies are walking away from these advantages. Instead, they’re encouraging employers to “self-insure” through ASCs. So let’s take a look at some of the problems this can cause.
In May of 2012, the LA Times told the story of a woman who found out she could have arranged a CT scan at a hospital for $1054 if she paid cash for it. She found this out after her insurer (Blue Shield) “negotiated” a price at the same hospital for the exact same CT scan of $2336.
One of my patients got a bill for nearly $135,000 covering a hospitalization at UCSF last February. Thanks to an ASC, her husband’s employer paid about a third of that (over $45,000). But UCSF’s financial records show that they normally get only about 27 percent on their bills, so $37,000 might have been enough.
With ASCs, insurance companies aren’t motivated to get the best deal on the price of a medical service because it’s not their money. They still knock a lot off the sticker price but, in health care, it’s hard to know a good deal because hospital markups are insanely high.
Take my own case. My wife’s ASC (through Blue Shield) was billed $4,716 for my colonoscopy. Blue Shield knocked it down to only $2,750 — Which is over 4 times what Medicare pays for the same procedure. And my wife’s employer is a hospital (UCSF). Why would a hospital allow such a terrible deal for a medical procedure? Probably because the employee benefits manager at USCF doesn’t consult with the hospital’s billing manager. So even a hospital can get taken by this system because, like many large businesses, they often write checks without taking the time to ask enough questions.
How does this affect you? If you’re an employee, expect your employer-sponsored premiums to keep going up because the insurance company that runs your employer’s ASC has no motive to negotiate good prices for your health care. Employers don’t realize this, because they’re not experts in health care costs. That pretty much guarantees rising health costs.
How does this affect Obamacare? Obamacare was created to insure individuals who can’t get employer sponsored health insurance and assumed that health insurance companies actually wanted to provide health insurance. In reality health insurance companies are happier pocketing a fee to negotiate bad deals with providers with no actual risk to themselves.
So insurance companies have actually found a way to write themselves out of the risk they’re supposed to be managing and we’re all paying the price.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-belk/the-obomacare-paradox-the_b_8735042.html
The Obamacare Paradox: The Real Reason Health Insurance Companies Don’t Like the ACA
Health insurance can be confusing. Take the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”). Health insurance companies spent a lot of money lobbying to make sure they’d profit from the eventual system. They were so successful, in fact, that a frequent criticism of Obamacare is that it’s just a “giveaway to the health insurance industry.” Yet, one of the major emerging challenges to Obamacare is that health insurance companies are now reluctant to participate. In fact, they’ve even spent millions of dollars trying to defeat the ACA. So, why are they opposing this supposed gift to them?
You could try asking the insurance companies, but don’t expect a clear answer from them. Creating confusion appears to be part of their business model. Still, most of the big health insurance companies file financial statements each year, and these financial statements can give us clues that might explain their behavior.
Before we jump into their financial statements, let’s first take a moment to understand the insurance business. Insurance is a bet you make with a large company that something bad will happen to you. It’s a strange bet, because both you and the company hope you’ll lose. Just to make sure you’ll lose, insurance companies hire high-priced financial talent to guarantee their odds of winning; they know exactly how to rig the game.
So imagine my surprise when I started analyzing insurance company financial records and found that the big insurance companies have spent years getting out of the commercial health insurance business. This explains why they’re rejecting Obamacare: it turns out the last thing they really wanted was millions of new commercial customers to insure.
Let me clarify this: health insurance companies aren’t rejecting all new business. For example if you qualify for either Medicare or Medicaid, you probably get calls every day from insurance companies that are trying to sign you up. The Medicare act of 2003 made these policies very profitable for them. Since 2005 the eight largest for-profit health insurance companies have increased their Medicare and Medicaid (non-commercial) membership almost 200 percent.
But if you don’t qualify for Medicare or Medicaid, insurance companies are a lot less interested in you. Commercial membership for these companies are up only about 13 percent since 2005, and with those policies, they’ve found a way to make someone else write the checks. Most commercial policies that insurance companies now manage are Administrative Service Contracts (ASCs) which aren’t even actual insurance.
Here’s how ASCs work: employers hire health insurance companies to manage medical expenses for their employees. The insurer gives these employees access to their networks of doctors and hospitals, and it processes claims, issues denials and negotiates medical bills. But the employer, not the insurer, writes the checks to cover the bills. This hasn’t reduced the confusion or bureaucracy in healthcare, but it’s a radical shift in financial responsibility. Employers are buying ASCs because ASC fees seem cheaper than the cost of insurance premiums.
Why is this strange? The purpose of insurance is to manage risk, and there are two major reasons people want insurance companies to manage their risk: they’re huge and risk management is all that they do. A large company needs to be an expert in the business it runs. Only a large health insurance company can afford to be an expert in how to price medical costs and manage medical risk. Also, the more insured policy holders an insurance company has, the easier it is for them to handle any unexpected payouts.
But unlike other types of insurance, health insurance companies are walking away from these advantages. Instead, they’re encouraging employers to “self-insure” through ASCs. So let’s take a look at some of the problems this can cause.
In May of 2012, the LA Times told the story of a woman who found out she could have arranged a CT scan at a hospital for $1054 if she paid cash for it. She found this out after her insurer (Blue Shield) “negotiated” a price at the same hospital for the exact same CT scan of $2336.
One of my patients got a bill for nearly $135,000 covering a hospitalization at UCSF last February. Thanks to an ASC, her husband’s employer paid about a third of that (over $45,000). But UCSF’s financial records show that they normally get only about 27 percent on their bills, so $37,000 might have been enough.
With ASCs, insurance companies aren’t motivated to get the best deal on the price of a medical service because it’s not their money. They still knock a lot off the sticker price but, in health care, it’s hard to know a good deal because hospital markups are insanely high.
Take my own case. My wife’s ASC (through Blue Shield) was billed $4,716 for my colonoscopy. Blue Shield knocked it down to only $2,750 — Which is over 4 times what Medicare pays for the same procedure. And my wife’s employer is a hospital (UCSF). Why would a hospital allow such a terrible deal for a medical procedure? Probably because the employee benefits manager at USCF doesn’t consult with the hospital’s billing manager. So even a hospital can get taken by this system because, like many large businesses, they often write checks without taking the time to ask enough questions.
How does this affect you? If you’re an employee, expect your employer-sponsored premiums to keep going up because the insurance company that runs your employer’s ASC has no motive to negotiate good prices for your health care. Employers don’t realize this, because they’re not experts in health care costs. That pretty much guarantees rising health costs.
How does this affect Obamacare? Obamacare was created to insure individuals who can’t get employer sponsored health insurance and assumed that health insurance companies actually wanted to provide health insurance. In reality health insurance companies are happier pocketing a fee to negotiate bad deals with providers with no actual risk to themselves.
So insurance companies have actually found a way to write themselves out of the risk they’re supposed to be managing and we’re all paying the price.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-belk/the-obomacare-paradox-the_b_8735042.html
McCain, Whitehouse Make Bipartisan Appeal To SCOTUS Against Wisconsin Gerrymandering
The Huffington Post 20
The senators made their argument in a friend of the court brief filed in Gill v. Whitford, a potentially monumental case the Supreme Court is set to hear on Oct. 3. The nation’s highest court has never said whether an electoral map, drawn by state lawmakers every 10 years ― often by the party in power ― can be unconstitutional simply for favoring one party too much over the other. The Supreme Court could make such a determination in the Wisconsin case, which could remake American politics by requiring states to draw maps that put lawmakers in more competitive races. In the brief, McCain and Whitehouse said the case “implicates the effective functioning of American representative democracy.” Redrawing ...
https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/1086f86b-9431-32dc-87b5-0dca5ff7bdb6/mccain,-whitehouse-make.html
Kasich, Schwarzenegger Team Up in US Political Map-making Fight
VOA News 12 hours ago .
COLUMBUS, OHIO — Ohio Gov. John Kasich on Tuesday joined friend and ex-California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's effort to overhaul partisan political map-making that's helped fuel their own Republican party's rise to power. Kasich signed onto a legal brief that opposes the GOP in the momentous redistricting case being heard by the U.S. Supreme Court this fall. He said other signers include Republicans John McCain, Richard Lugar and Bob Dole. At issue is whether Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin drew legislative districts that favored their party and were so out of whack with the state's political breakdown that they violated Democratic voters' constitutional rights. Kasich, a 2016 presidential ...
https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/900dc7...d2428ea26/ss_kasich,-schwarzenegger-team.html
The Huffington Post 20
The senators made their argument in a friend of the court brief filed in Gill v. Whitford, a potentially monumental case the Supreme Court is set to hear on Oct. 3. The nation’s highest court has never said whether an electoral map, drawn by state lawmakers every 10 years ― often by the party in power ― can be unconstitutional simply for favoring one party too much over the other. The Supreme Court could make such a determination in the Wisconsin case, which could remake American politics by requiring states to draw maps that put lawmakers in more competitive races. In the brief, McCain and Whitehouse said the case “implicates the effective functioning of American representative democracy.” Redrawing ...
https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/1086f86b-9431-32dc-87b5-0dca5ff7bdb6/mccain,-whitehouse-make.html
Kasich, Schwarzenegger Team Up in US Political Map-making Fight
VOA News 12 hours ago .
COLUMBUS, OHIO — Ohio Gov. John Kasich on Tuesday joined friend and ex-California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's effort to overhaul partisan political map-making that's helped fuel their own Republican party's rise to power. Kasich signed onto a legal brief that opposes the GOP in the momentous redistricting case being heard by the U.S. Supreme Court this fall. He said other signers include Republicans John McCain, Richard Lugar and Bob Dole. At issue is whether Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin drew legislative districts that favored their party and were so out of whack with the state's political breakdown that they violated Democratic voters' constitutional rights. Kasich, a 2016 presidential ...
https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/900dc7...d2428ea26/ss_kasich,-schwarzenegger-team.html
Barack Obama is the best salesman I have ever seen. Look at where the Democratic party was when he came into office and where it was after he left. And he left office with one of the highest approval rating ever. Trump really doesn't have much in the way of charisma. He is and has been a CEO that has inherited his wealth and position. He is used to getting his way. I have known more than one CEO like him in my career.
One of the major qualities that is virtually never discussed is why the person is in politics. LBJ made one of the fastest rises to wealth through politics. The Clinton's wealth is entirely related to their political careers. Not too long before he ended his second term Barack Obama stated he wanted to raise a BILLION dollars to fund a non profit for his initiatives around the world. Of course chairing a non profit can pay pretty well.
On the other hand both Reagan and Trump came to office with substantial wealth. I don't agree with entirely with either of them and Trump could probably benefit from some counseling about how to work and play with others. However neither was counting on politics to enrich themselves. There intention was to make the United States better. I am well aware of the sharp division on both of these men, I am referring only to their intent.
The Clinton's have substantial wealth and they draw a presidential pension which they are entitled to. They are also entitled to Secret Service protection. The Secret Service rents space from the Clinton's for a mobile home that serves as office and staff quarters. The rent they pay covers the payments on the 1.7 million dollar Clinton home.
Barrack Obama draws a $203,000 annual pension despite being worth several million and expecting a $400,000 speaking fee. Back in the mid 1990's Secret service protection was limited to 10 years for ex-presidents. Obama changed that back to lifetime protection but he did extend the protection to is predecessor.
As far as I know neither Bush is collecting a pension, but then they are worth millions and don't need it.
The whole pension thing got started because of Truman. He wasn't greedy, or crooked and was having trouble making ends meet so the presidential pension was implemented. It wouldn't look good to have a destitute former president.
One little addition, Jimmy Carter wasn't eligible for health care through the Federal Government. You have to be a Federal employee for 5 years to be eligible
Wisconsin has an incredibly rich political and cultural history. There is a broad spectrum of good, bad and debatable. Our current governor (debatable and colorful), Joe McCarthy (BAD) we are the only state where if a death occurs due to a police officers actions or while a person is in police custody an investigation by an outside agency is mandatory (GOOD) plus we have the Green Bay Packers
Company attitudes really aren't any surprise. It is nothing more than a bargaining ploy. The best and fastest way to raise rates is to let some exchanges fold and plead poverty, leave some exchanges with a single insurer. The insurer will plead poverty insist on more subsidies and higher rates. With just a single source there is a lot of pressure to give them what they want. When rates are high enough other insurers will rejoin. If you remember when ACA started Obama was telling us how they were limiting the profits. And lo and behold a company was found to be making excessive profits was chastised and required to make refunds. I have often wondered how the insurance industry choose their sacrificial goat and how they were compensated. Think I am cynical? not really it is just a world I understand quite well
did you read either of those 2 articles..... the damned ins companies are/were still making money when they quit the exchange!...some were just worried or what amounts to afraid that sooner or later they would take a hit!
talk about BS
to me they are really some of the ones that need a lot more looking into and regulation!
here every year for over 15 years they went in front of the state and said they needed to raise rates... ( tornadoes and etc)...every year the state gave it to them...EXCPT this year.. the state wants to look into it.....took them 15 years to decide that...now all of a sudden ins comp real quiet
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